Can you write your own will in Florida?

David: Hey Jill, how are you doing today?
Jill: I’m doing just great, David. And how are you doing?

David: I am fantastic. So we get a lot of questions to our website or to us, and I have a few we want to discuss. One of them is, can I write my own will and have it notarized in Florida? What do you think about that?
Jill: Well, you know, I think it’s a great idea.

I think you should draft your will. I think you should just get it notarized. Forget about those two witnesses that you need, because then it just means more work for us. And David, you and I, how much we charge for a probate now?

David: A lot more than we would charge for a will. Jill’s obviously joking, because what happens is, if you write your own will, And a will in Florida needs two witnesses.

So if you write your own will and you just have it notarized, the notary maybe could be one of the witnesses, but it’s not, it’s still, it’s not a valid will. So in some states, they have what’s known as [00:01:00] holographic wills, where you can write out your own will, in your own handwriting, and don’t have to have it witnessed.
Good luck. It’s not valid in Florida.

Jill: Well you can write. Okay. But in Florida, you can write your own will in your handwriting as long as there are two witnesses. Now, here’s the interesting part. You don’t need a notary. Isn’t that correct, David?
David: That’s absolutely true. A will does not have to be notarized, but it does have to be signed in the presence of two witnesses who have to be in the presence of each other.

So the testator, the person signing the will, and the two witnesses all have to see each other sign. It’s interesting because when, I mean, back in the day, back in ancient history, pre COVID, we would all sit in a room together, and everyone would watch each other, But with COVID, we had to take some interesting steps.
You don’t necessarily have to be in the same room with each other. You just have to witness and be able to see each other. So what we were doing when COVID, is we have a conference room and there’s a [00:02:00] big, you know, wall length window and people would stand on the other side of the window and one would be in the room and they can see each other sign.
But there was also distancing because of COVID.

Jill: And I think we’re kind of returning back to normal now. I know you’ve been doing in person signings for a while now, so I don’t really think we have that issue. And now everybody is really in the same room with each other.
David: Right. We’ve gone, I think we’ve mostly gone back to normal.